Budget sounds good, but ‘they will steal the money’

Bernard Tabaire

What you need to know:

  • I watched TV after the Budget speech was delivered. One of the stations went “down there” to talk to Kampala’s “unwashed masses”.
  • A hairdresser said she did not pay the Budget pageantry any attention because fixing her clients’ hair was the thing for her. The Budget, she said, meant nothing.

The national Budget is in. Like others before it, it is a reasonable document. Tax cuts/exemptions in the right places (agricultural inputs/Saccos), tax increments/new taxes in even more right places (alcohol/cigarettes/gaming).
“VAT on crop extension services, animal feeds and premixes, deep cycle batteries and composite lanterns, irrigation works, sprinklers and ready to use drip lines has now been exempted,” Finance minister Matia Kasaija said. Not a problem.

Undue delays and inefficiency
The minister also identified things that have hampered the government’s delivery of public goods and services. “Undue delays and inefficiency in execution of government programmes and projects. These have dampened anticipated positive impact on the economy.” There is also corruption. “This has held back projects and programmes in some sectors. This disease has turned into cancer, which has hampered service delivery.”
This is where public sentiment comes in. It is not that the government is delivering nothing. It is that it is not delivering enough, fast enough because of naked corruption.
You see, corruption is the catchall word we in the street use when we don’t see and don’t feel the government in our lives. Okay, we actually see the government when we hit the streets to protest something or other. Then security services come out guns firing and batons swinging.

But rubbish collection? Zero. Lit streets? Darkness. Ambulance system? Zilch. Smooth roads? Potholes. Working schools? Minus zero. Transformed agriculture? You wish. Working healthcare system? Sickness just.
I watched TV after the Budget speech was delivered. One of the stations went “down there” to talk to Kampala’s “unwashed masses”. A hairdresser said she did not pay the Budget pageantry any attention because fixing her clients’ hair was the thing for her. The Budget, she said, meant nothing.
A young man, not sure he is employed, said regardless what the Budget says, “they will just steal the money”. They will steal the money. You hear that so often. It is a retort expressed with resignation and suppressed anger.
Ugandans seem to despise their leaders, never mind that they elect most of them. They think the fat cats are just that: fat cats looking out for their own bank accounts and those of family and assorted cronies.

So when they see a Budget theme that speaks to “job creation and shared prosperity”, they let out a sad smile. They know it is sloganeering without meaning. They are on their own.
And they feel patronised when they are told, as minister Kasaija did toward the end of his speech, that they need to change “mind-sets and attitudes” … “towards hard work and not wait for hand-outs. All able-bodied Ugandans must engage in productive economic activities”.
Duh!
Does the minister and fat cats like him not see that Ugandans rise as early as 5am every day to go hustle for a living?

Laxity and corruption in the public service
Mr Kasaija and his boss, the President, are better of delivering on only one thing that the minister spoke about on Thursday afternoon: decisively dealing with “laxity and corruption in the public service”.
Anything else is wolokoso and we the people see through it.

Mr Tabaire is the co-founder and director of programmes at African Centre for Media Excellence in Kampala.
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Twitter:@btabaire